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Election night: 2.00-3.00am

Right, I’m armed with one final coffee. Pretty sure this will be the last hour for me before I need to grab a bit of sleep.

2.05am: The sense I’m getting is that the Tories are doing a lot of damage to Labour, but perhaps not enough to secure an overall majority. And the Lib Dems are doing no damage to anybody. Beyond that, I’m committing to nothing. How’s that for in-depth analysis?

2.15am: Toby’s grizzling in his cot upstairs. I know exactly how he feels.

2.20am: Of the four seats I have a personal interest in, Newbury has already declared as a Tory hold with an increased majority, Oxford West & Abingdon is forecasting a declaration around 3am, Brent North at 4am and Corby at 5am. How the hell am I supposed to plan my sleep around that lot?

2.25am: Toby now crying. Time for another feed. Now I mention it, I’m feeling a bit peckish too. Oh, hang on, another big name casualty: Lembit Opik’s out on his ear. I’d forgotten he was an MP; I thought he’d become a professional Z-list celebrity dater.

2.41am: Um, some stuff is happening. A run of three results in which Tories capture marginal seats from Labour. It’s not looking good for Gordon.

2.57am: Over to Witney for the declaration in David Cameron’s seat. Oh, this is brilliant. Not because there’s any doubt over the result – we know he’s going to win with an enormous majority (nearly 23,000 as it turns out) – but because we have a proper line-up of candidates. Ten in all, including candidates for the Monster Raving Loonies and the Wessex Regionalists. No surprise as Cameron’s opening salvo gently implies that the earlier polling station fiascos are somehow Gordon’s fault personally. The BBC studio pundits had been predicting a fairly equivocal speech from Cameron given that more than two-thirds of constituencies have yet to declare, but his words are fairly strong without being complacent: “I believe it is already clear that the Labour government has lost its mandate to govern our country. What is clear from these results is that the country wants change. That change is going to require new leadership.” The cameras cut away at the end of the speech, so we don’t get to see whether Cameron’s next move is to speed-dial Nick Clegg.

Okay, that’s 3am. Now what? This is quite good fun, this. Not quite the same as doing live text commentary on the football or cricket, but fun nonetheless.